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| Guido Reni Young Woman Reading before 1642 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts Trompe l'Oeil with Letter Rack and Music Book 1668 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
-c1776-oil-on-canvas-Redwood-Library-and-Athenaeum-Newport-Rhode-Island.jpg) |
| Gilbert Stuart Portrait of physician Benjamin Waterhouse ca. 1776 oil on canvas Redwood Library and Athenaeum, Newport, Rhode Island |
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| Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros Frédéric Bourgeois de Mercey reading a Letter ca. 1850-60 daguerreotype Bibliothèque nationale de France |
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| George Reynolds Man reading in Hammock 1888 etching National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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| Irving Ramsay Wiles Woman Reading 1889 oil on canvas Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut |
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| Charles Noel Flagg The Bookworm 1891 oil on canvas Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Connecticut |
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| John Frederick Peto In the Library ca. 1894-1900 oil on canvas Timken Museum of Art, San Diego |
A revealing study – never yet undertaken – would document the tradition (extending back into the Renaissance) of depicting books in various states of neglect and abuse. Still life is one genre where the sad evidence is abundant, but portraits and historiae are equally rich in examples. Scholars of the European past stress the fact that printed books tended to be more costly and valuable in earlier than in later centuries, yet their presentation is consistently casual and apparently indifferent throughout – volumes heaped on the floor, tipping off desks, splayed open upside down with pages creased and torn, covers bending or broken. Was it subliminal hostility between media? Writing was forever claiming impertinently to explain Painting. How could Painting retaliate, except to become the Slaughterhouse of Writing?
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| Bernard Hall The Marble Staircase, Public Library 1925 oil on canvas National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Charles Locke The Reading Room 1931 lithograph Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| Adrian John Lawlor Reading ca. 1938 oil on canvas Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Australia |
-Sylvia-Colle-1954-ORIG-oil-on-canvas-Saint-Louis-Art-Museum.jpg) |
| Balthus (Balthasar Klossowski) Sylvia Colle 1954 oil on canvas Saint Louis Art Museum |
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| Jacob Lawrence The Library 1960 tempera on board Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Anselm Kiefer The Book 1979-85 oil paint, lead, photographic paper, straw and textile fabric on canvas Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| Howard Bond Bookmark, East Pennard, England 1982 gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Madonna Staunton Dream Trolly 2013 artist's book on wooden platform with wheels National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Island Life, 1860
I
One day when she was rinsing clothes at the jetty
the chill of the sea rose up through her arms
and into her soul.
Her tears froze to a pair of spectacles. The island
gathered itself, its white grass bristling,
and the herring flag streamed in the depths of the sea.
II
The swarm of smallpox caught up with him
and settled on his face.
He lies in bed, staring into the ceiling.
What huge effort to move through this silence.
The strain of this moment spreading out forever,
this moment's wound in its ever-widening pool.
– Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015), translated by Robin Robertson (2006)